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My concluding homage to all things Cyberpunk. You want a disclaimer? Go read the FDA warning on a box of children's cereal. You want lots of guns, sex, and ultra-violence, my fellow droogs? Then you have come to the right place. Basil is copyright NautaCeta, all other Meatbags copyright Eldyran. Selected lyrics from Agent Provocateur - Red Tape and FLA - Decsention, are copyright 2005 Wall of Sound and 2006 Metropolis records, respectively, used without permission. Prepare yourself for Future Shock, and Do Not Taunt HappyFunBall(tm) !!!

Moral Obsolescence and Motor Oil

Part VII - Conceiving in a Glowing Afterlife

2007 by Eldyran

As Private First Class Gibson stared out into the wall of darkness just beyond the reassuring blanket of florescent lighting at Fort Rekall's supply gate, the ferret squinted at what he assumed was a trick of the night sky near the western horizon. For the last six months Gibson had gotten used to the wavering, almost aurora like quality to it, the after effects of a loss of containment incident in nearby Davenport's micro-fusion reactor number five. And yet on the horizon, out of the thick, uneven line of boreal foliage, a close set pair of stars twinkled over the ridge line, growing closer.

"Hey Corporal," the ferret said, turning to the bear manning the booth of the security checkpoint next to him, "Are we expecting another transport tonight? I thought the last deployment of AMR security detail wasn't scheduled until 0500 hundred tomorrow?" The grizzled bear growled and checked his itinerary, before leaning out of the window, glancing at the incoming transport.

"I don't know, but I don't think I can stomach another black suited, helmeted goon." Corporal Dick gruffed, "Didn't someone remind AMR that the masked, clone henchmen look is out?"

"Yeah, they give me we willies, Corporal. And what is with that top secret military cargo they brought in from Russia?" The ferret shuffled about, readjusting the angle of his assault rifle to ease the stiffness in his arms.

"Don't ask, Private, and sure as Hell don't tell." the crusty bear huffed out as he kept his beady, distrustful eyes on the transport lumbering toward them.

"Why is the NCC taking out a contract with AMR again?" Gibson asked, the politics obviously of interest to him.

"Didn't you hear son? We are all getting deployed. With all the fuss going on near Mars Colony, the NCC is going to deploy near strategically vital Sol assets in case the Amish decide to throw more than just asteroids our way. AMR is just going to safeguard the reestablished Northwest Territories for us in our temporary absence. It all just a formality really. Now, attention Private, act like you deserve your paycheck!"

The diesel rumbled out of the wall of gloom, its camouflaged paint job faded somewhat under the bleached glow of the gate lights, and slowed on approach the electrified double gate. PFC Gibson sundered over to the passenger side as the ground transport lurched to a hard stop with squeak and loud hiss of air brakes. His thumb claw ran over the hard metallic safety of his assault rifle in nervousness. A fox with red tinted eyes glanced down at him from the cab, but something about his smile bothered the ferret. On the other side his corporal glowered up to the coyote in the driver's seat, his stock NCC uniform brand new but bearing no name lapels on the chest or rank insignias on the shoulder.

"You care to explain yourself, soldier?" Phillip said up to the yote, whose cybernetic right forearm rested gently on the shuddering steering wheel, "Why are you out of uniform?"

"Name's Reese, my buddy Ferro here said the shit hit the fan again." One of the heavyset yote's chrome colored optics winked at him, "And we came by to re-enlist. You guys have room for two VSA vets?"

The bear's frown eased, and after checking out Reese's previous enlistment history, punched in the key code to cycle the gates, which started to rattle open. William's tight grip on his assault rifle eased, the barrel dropping more to the roadway.

"You know what they say, Reese," the ursine remarked, "You are in for life ... and there is only one way to retirement ..." Reese smiled a shark's smile.

"You are absolutely right ..." the yote replied in cold monotone, before his left paw whipped out a silenced auto pistol from behind the cover of the cab's driver side door, the vulpine next to him doing the same.

With a dual zip of suppressed gas, the canid duo shot the two guards in the head. Their slack bodies dropped to the ground simultaneously as twin slugs tore through their frontal lobes with NCC trained precision.

Philip left behind a widow and two cubs back somewhere in old Quebec; William's dreams of becoming a career politician came to an abrupt, unheralded halt. And yet Reese and Ferro carried on with no apparent remorse as the fox jumped down out of the cab and gathered up the guard's rifles, Reese slipping a slim, tactical headset with mike over what remained of his uneven, canid ears.

"Basil, we've secured the gate, how you doing back there?" the yote whispered, keeping an eye on the fox as he pulled the bear's key card from his belt.

"It smells like a couple of pigs died then decided to have an orgy back here. Where did you get this truck again?" The unseen skoon barked back, trying not to gag over the radio.

"I 'borrowed' it from Dmitriy's garage. I have a feeling he wont care." Reese replied joylessly, reaching out as Ferro handed him the rifles and then climbed back up into the cab.

The old transport groaned out in mash of gears, and lurched forward, noxious fumes billowing from its exhaust stacks. Reese slammed the accelerator to the cab floor, swinging the huge ground vehicle around to make a beeline to a clump of low profile structures to the south east. The two canids grabbed tight as the huge cab bounced them around with every small bump in the base's pavement as the truck thundered onward. In about five minutes the unclosed supply gate would send out an automated, base wide alarm.

In about sixty seconds it wouldn't matter.

"Basil, ETA to the Armory twenty seconds. Secondary target's are the motor pool and hanger. You copy?"

"You stay safe, Chrome Coyote. Peer's memories might make me kill you otherwise for wasting his time. And try to bring back Max in once piece." Reese's muzzle lips tightened in a grin at the hybrid skoon's words. He spun the diesel around a barracks building and the back set of double wheels stuttered to find traction. The yote gunned the throttle again once the back end of the transport faced the armory.

"Go! Go! Go!" Reese screamed out over the headset as the tailgate dropped suddenly, a squeal of rubber screeching out just behind the two canids in the cab. Basil shot out of the back end on a police motorcycle, engine roaring, his green cargo pants and brown leather vest flapping in the rush of air past him. Sparks flew from the underbelly as the bike crashed down, Basil leaning the bike to swerve around a pair of armory guards who had ran around a corner to investigate the commotion.

They pulled their assault rifles up and opened fire, sparks of ricochet flying around the skoon's speedy diversion. Basil looked back behind him, then to his side as more gunfire erupted off to his left. A clump of cargo crates sitting just ahead of him threated to cut off his escape, but instead of swinging around closer to the gunfire on his left, Basil gunned the bike and raced up along the side of the armory wall. The crates below exploded into splinters as the line of fully automatic gunfire tracked him, and the gene-spliced skoon used the momentum to flip the motorcycle corkscrew, landing back on the ground on both wheels with a short squawk of rubber.

Basil peeled around the northwest corner of the armory building, zeroing in on a glass window near a loading dock. With a flourish of his right paw, tendrils of purple mana flared up around it, before he sent a fireball exploding through the flimsy glass. The skoon picked off one of the two satchel charges on his bike and tossed it into the open window, racing away. Another burst of gunfire sent him swerving for cover, growing annoyed with the unusual number of foot soldiers on alert already.

Something was defiantly up.

Meanwhile while Basil was drawing most of the unwanted attention away from the transport, Reese backed up the truck to a loading dock at the Comm building, trying to make it seem like the truck belonged there. Once the air brakes deployed, he let the rough engine idle and jumped out with Ferro, sweeping the area with their recently procured assault rifles. As Reese provided cover, Ferro slipped over to the loading dock bay and bypassed security with the bear's key card. The blast doors slid apart with a soft hiss and the two canids slipped inside, closing it quickly behind them.

"You think Raies planted the charge yet?" Ferro said as Reese slid over to a network access panel, plugging in Basil's Imod to it. The building rattled abruptly as the shock wave from massive explosion rocked the base grounds.

"I'd say that was a good sign," the yote grinned to the slightly taller fox, "Max access the dish array, connect to the AMR primary communications satellite." The lion Artificial Intelligence contained within the mass media device flashed up on the terminal screen.

"N-n-no can do Wile E." the badly rendered lion stuttered out, "AMR has locked down this base's network access. Something about delivering a highly classified military project from Russia to the AMR arcology tomorrow."

"Just Fraggin' Great!" the yote growled, sending his metallic right paw through some maintenance plumbing next to him.

"Hey," Ferro barked, "You should have kept to your original plan, and just hit a NCC comm outpost. Not Fort Rekall itself! I told you on the way here that this was suicide."

Reese glowered back at the vulpine, his synthetic digit twitching slightly on the assault rifle's trigger. Maybe the fox knew why he had made a sudden change of strategic plans. This trite little game of personal cloak and dagger was getting complicated right quick.

Sooner or later one of them was going to die for it.

"Back off fly boy. The only ground pounding you've seen was last night when I gave it to you," Reese growled out, before grabbing the mike on his headset, bringing it closer to his muzzle lips, "Raies, you copy?"

Count 5

_Within nanoseconds of Max's attempted access to Fort Rekall's computer communications subsystems, security triggers throughout the entire AMR network went off in unmatched efficiency. Based on relayed data from a well placed mole, strategists had predicted a 36% probability that Reese might change his intended target of infiltration, but only a 2% chance that he would attempt to infiltrate Fort Rekall itself. All NCC and AMR assets had been deployed at all other outposts in the vicinity to capture the veteran coyote and renegade GEH, and the closest AMR assets were still half an hour away.

Somewhere on the lunar surface, a well defended complex awoke from the slumber of eternal vacuum. Red running lights blinked on in sequence down a set of rails as the rest of the AMR mass diver array came online, the main cannon rolling out from the complex into the bright light of the unobstructed sun._

Twenty seconds earlier the satchel charge Basil had thrown into the Armory loading docks popped off like a single firecracker. One single firecracker, going off in a warehouse of fireworks however, made for a much bigger boom. A small, bright white mushroom cloud engulfed the Armory and those immediately around it, the roar of the shock wave alone crushing anything within a quarter kilometer not reinforced with a half meter thick wall of ferrocrete. The blast wave picked up Basil's bike and tossed it like a flimsy piece of paper; the next thing the skoon remembered was shaking his head clear of pulverized debris, his headset crackling.

" ...u ... opy?" Basil blinked, his body aching with the concussive blast. He groaned and pushed the remnants of a thin wall off him, which crumbled in his grasp. The phantom ringing in his hybrid ears seemed to form actual language. "Raies ... do you copy? OVER!"

"Yeah ... nice plan Chimpra, I think we might have overdone the distraction ..." Basil dug out his dented bike from the rubble and groaned out as he hauled it up, a small trickle of blood oozing out of his right nostril.

"AMR is on site. REPEAT. AMR is on site, Max says they are deployed in Barracks three through six. Can you intercept?" Basil jumped on the police bike as debris continued to rain down from the dark heavens above. With a hard kick, the sturdy bike thundered to life underneath him.

"Affirmative," the skoon's lips whispered low into the mike, a smear of bright crimson on them, "Interception ... imminent ..."

He moved the remaining satchel charge from the bike to over his shoulder before clamping down the front brake in his left paw. Basil's right paw twisted the throttle after he kicked the bike down into first, the back wheel spinning, squealing in place as a cloud of blue-white smoke filled the gritty air around him. The skoon released the brake and fishtailed, before ramping off a charred metal slab. His jump cleared him of the immediate rubble area, before another shower of spark from underneath the chassis announced ground fall.

Basil ducked forward behind the bike's protective windshield, eyes narrowed as airborne fragments of fallout bounced harmlessly off of it. Swerving around the chaos of debris strew about, the hybrid glimpsed a section of barracks structure that had been punctured and torn open. A thousand tactical scenario's raced through the ex-mercenary's hyperbolic mind. He decided he didn't have the time for hit and run tactics. Instead, he swung the bike around and gunned the engine, thundering into the open gash, straight down ramrod into his foe's gullet.

Into the Belly of the Beast.

Tiny tiny, a little faith; I bet he played a little, bend the norm ...

Basil jerked the bike down on its side into a skid of sparks. As he rushed toward a flimsy interior wall, he angled the machine so its metal chassis punched through it instead. He released his grip on the bike and skid on a knee and right, extended paw, sliding to a crouched stop with a harsh scrape of leather and cold resolve. For a moment his head hung down, flickering banks of barracks lights above obscuring his hunched silhouette. Tendrils of purple mana appeared, wisping up from his bristled hackles, and he shot his head up suddenly, his gene-sculpted irises aflame with iridescent, concentrated fury.

Stay still, sit up straight; You know you got to concentrate ...

The skoon sprang up from his crouch, striding down the dimly light, empty hallway with grim purpose, toward the main bunk quarters. The coloration of his fur rippled with mana, matching the shifting light sources and gray, uniform barracks walls. OLED technology interweaved into the ballistics material of Basil's cargo pants and leather vest followed suit, the skoon evolving into living shadow. After flinging a miniature fireball into a exposed electrical box down the hallway, twin machine pistols sprang up from Basil's belt holsters.

Bail's paws gripped them in mid-air, squeezing off a stream of gunfire that blew off the hinges from the doorway in front of him. The fuse box sizzled, then exploded in an electrical shower. Every light in the barracks overloaded and blew, bathing every room in absolute darkness. Augmented myosin in the skoon's hind legs bunched, drove the athletic hybrid racing down the hall, his limbs a blur as he drop kicked the steel door. He rode it into the pitch black room, a shower of sparks trailing behind as tracer fire erupted from all around him.

Oh pick it up, and put it in; You chose a great party ...

Sporadic muzzle flashes from Basil's machine pistol's bounced off the tinted visors of countless AMR soldiers, the two in front flailing as a stream of bullets ripped into their creasless black uniforms. Basil stood up and spun, ducking an errant bullet that whizzed by, grazing his vest, his engineered synapses slowing its trajectory to a ghost of its supersonic velocity. He pulled the barrels of his guns with his spin, releasing another twin volley into some goons off to his left. Their corpses twitched, danced as their assault rifles fired off blindly into the ceiling.

Basil's hind foot lifted to evade a stream of close combat gunfire, before slamming it up into the soldier's helmet, crushing the dense polymer inward with a dull crunch. He entangled the stunned soldier's arms with his own on the backspin, twirling about, empty cases spilling from his firing chambers like miniature spouts. More soldiers fell in an arc front of him, their passings illuminated with strobing muzzle flashes. As the soldier behind him soaked up concentrated, aimed gunfire, his own assault rifle fired off in his spastic death throe, taking out his comrades in the process.

Once the perforated body behind him grew slack and heavy, Basil dropped it and strode forward, firing off shots behind him to unseen assailants, who floundered to the floor in a pool of spreading crimson. Dropping his empty pistols, Basil shunted forward in a sudden blur, his hind feet kicking up an AUG to his pre-positioned paws. The skoon's body twisted, spinning to evade an angry swarm zipping around him, sporadic bursts from his own barrel lighting the room up in strobes.

He continued to twirl about in deadly ballistic pirouettes, defying physics, and bringing unrestrained slaughter to all the obsolete, free births around him.

Tiny tiny, a little faith; I bet he played a little, bend the norm ...

Count 4

Clearing the maintenance gantry, the 300 ton mass driver rolled to stop once it had reached safe firing position. Several supports popped out of the siege engine's sides and planted themselves deep into the lunar surface, kicking up swirls of meteoric dust as they locked and stabilized the firing platform. The platform pivoted, its gargantuan servos whirling unheard in near vacuum as the linear array raised, pointing to Sol's surface at latitude 50.90, longitude -126.06.

A few buildings away from the barracks Reese shuffled through featureless military corridors, sweeping around corners while Ferro leapfrogged in a classic two person fire team. Klaxon's rang from every corner, but the hallways remained empty, a fact that seemed to put the veteran yote at ill ease. The fox shot him a worried look as they moved deeper and deeper into the communications complex.

"You sure about this plan of his, Crunchie?" Ferro said, peering around the next set of corners.

"Max said that only the terminals located in command central isn't locked down." the heavyset, stocky coyote rumbled in a low growl, trying to keep as stealthy as he could considering a good portion of the base had just turned into a smoking pothole. "We don't have a choice. We have to find an access point into the AMR arcology mainframe so Max can locate the paydata to Project SETH. Once he transmits it to every infoterm in artificial creation, it wont matter to AMR what secrets we know of theirs, cause everyone will know them."

Reese took point again, scurrying up to the next junction. He peeked around it to the greeting of gunfire; paint chips exploding in his muzzle as he ducked back behind cover, his back pressed hard against the wall. He looked back to the attractive, hard bodied fox.

"Security checkpoint. Three guards, ten, eleven, and one o'clock. Larry, Curly, and Moe. Larry and Moe have C7's, Curly a MG-43."

"I'll draw Curly's fire, you concentrate on Moe and Larry." Ferro barked back, taking up his position. "On three."

Reese wasn't about to argue with the vulpine, and just matched count. On three Ferro pulled a good impression of Houdini, and blinked across the gap to the other side, heavy caliber ricochet where his hind feet had been fractions of a second before. Reese swung out as machine gun fire tried to track the ghostly fox, and left loose with a volley that sawed Larry in half, his midsection splattering against the reinforced steel wall behind the mink.

Moe dodged for cover behind the security checkpoint as Curly swung his MG back over, riddling the wall Reese used for cover. Ferro popped back around and removed Curly's head with a well timed burst, the bull's head bursting like an overripe tomato. Reese rolled into the hallway, opening fire just as Moe popped back up, aiming dead center at the fox's chest. The badger danced the NATO jig, his shocked, dying eyes closing as he convulsed against the door to the comm room and slid down, leaving a perforated, blood streak behind.

Reese and Ferro looked at each other for a moment before reloading, making sure to watch the other corridors for reinforcements. As they approached the security checkpoint leading to the primary communications room, Reese plugged in Basil's Imod to the checkpoint's terminal while Ferro walked backwards, covering their rear.

"Max, can you open these ..." Before Kylson could finish, the double doors to the comm room slid open, revealing a severely panicked raccoon technician.

"Don't shoot!" the coon exclaimed, throwing his paws in the air. Ferro pulled him through the doorway and pushed him into the pool of blood and viscera coating the floor.

"Get down! Don't move!" Ferro barked out. When the fox shoved the blistering hot barrel his his rifle into the tech's neck, he gave a squeak of fear and pain.

"One weekend a month my ASS!!!" the coon cried out as Reese slipped into the otherwise empty room filled with all manner of command gear.

The coyote hooked up the Imod to the most impressive looking terminal, crossing his furry fingers, hoping that the lion A.I. was worth his ego in throughput. Without warning, Ferro threw himself through the doorway just as a hail of gunfire erupted from down the hallway.

"We've got company!" the mercenary fox screamed out, scrambling for cover as bullets sparked off the console near him. Reese ducked for his own cover and grinned. He was wondering when this opportunity would present itself.

Count 3

For a few minutes, the monolithic orbital howitzer seemed stuck in indecision, its barrel contemplating the fate of its target with grim impartiality. In actuality, it took five minutes for all its magnetic safety interlocks to disengage, the huge banks of polarized conduits charging to maximum capacity. Despite the legions of AMR and NCC troops still stationed at Fort Rekall, the object transported from the origins of Tunguska, Russia was too dangerous a threat to let fall into the wrong paws. This left the puppet corporation AMR with no choice but to wipe the last threat to its puppet masters off the face of Sol.

Meanwhile, in the hanger on the eastern edge of the base near the airstrip, an entire platoon of AMR security personnel milled about, guns at the ready. As they tried to sort out the chaos of conflicting orders over the comm chatter, the skylight above the old Antonov An-124 shattered, a furry chameleon of death descending upon them. All rifles turned and pointed up to the falling, spinning blur, but their aim proved too hasty, their recoil too reckless, and the hangar lighting too insufficient to draw a proper bead on the renegade GEH.

Basil spun about in free fall like a death blossom, emptying his clips with godlike precision into the targets below. He slung his blistering pistols down when they ran empty, his toned hybrid form creating a counter spin to steady him, and he unfolded seconds before splattering into the hard pavement below. The two pistols smashed into the visors of two black, faceless AMR soldiers, their rifles misfiring as their heads snapped back hard from the impromptu projectiles.

The skoon's paws latched onto an antenna that jutted out from the ancient Russian cargo plane, and he spun around it, bleeding off gravity's acceleration, before landing on his hind feet into a tight grouping of AMR grunts. They spun about, trying to bring the long barrels to bare, but Basil grabbed each one as they presented themselves, the skoon's limbs a blur as he redirected the gunfire into the opposite soldier's hind legs.

A spinning back kick and martial clothesline dropped the last two thugs, just as Basil noticed a small robotic entourage unloading a sleek, black cryo-tube from the back of the An-124, heading for the hangar doors. A hail of gunfire snapped the hybrid from his distraction, and he flipped backwards, sparks of ricocheting bullets following his graceful somersaults behind hard cover. As the skoon slipped against his back against the cool steel of the cargo plane's side, his paws felt around under his tan leather vest.

Out of guns. Out of ammo. Out of options.

He listened to the soldiers circle around his cover, their boots scuffing the hanger floor as they fanned out, maximizing their fire arcs. Basil took off the last remaining satchel charge and planted it on the side of the plane next to him, near the replenished fuel tanks, setting the timer for sixty seconds. When he was ready, the hybid pulled his combat knife, its glass blade twinkling under the dim hanger lighting.

A few moments later, small purple wisps of mana curled around it, restructuring, reinforcing the silicon atoms into a unbreakable mono edged weapon. Basil hit the timer on the charge, and walked out into the midst of the circular rings of black suited soldiers, their weapons trained on him. Basil stopped in the circle as they closed in, the blade leaving a trail of faint luminescence as he performed a kata. His left paw extended palm up to the faceless minions, and then motioned for them to bring it.

The massive interior in the hanger filled with the overlapping crescendo of chattering gunfire as every remaining soldier opened fire at once, the circular swarm of bullets descending on the gene sculpted skoon.

Count 2

In the Big Vac, no one can hear the hum of a linear rail assembly reaching critical capacity and discharging all of its magnetic capacitors in timed sequence. As such, there was no sonic herald announcing the discharge of the massive mass driver cannon, its suspension supports absorbing most of the recoil as electromagnetic physics sent the 100 kilogram slug hurdling at 500 kilometers a second toward Sol itself.

Another burst of gunfire erupted through the door to the communications command room, and Reese kept his head down behind cover as the NCC soldiers crept up to his position in the hallway outside. Despite the threat creeping up, he kept his eyes on a much more dangerous foe. Ferro peeked around the corner of some console, then pulled back when sparks ricocheted off of it. The vulpine pilot looked back at the coyote, who gave the paw signs to wait till they appeared in the doorway choke point, then execute an ambush.

Ferro crawled around the terminal and found an ambush point that afforded maximum crossfire. It brought him close to the yote's own fire arc, but the fox hadn't seen him miss yet. A few moments of tense suspense passed, and then the NCC soldiers make a sudden gambit through the doorway to the closest console for cover. The two canids popped up like suicidal jack-in-the-boxes, their crossfire cutting down the wave of meat bodies moving through their firing arcs like a chainsaw swinging wildly through alpine saplings.

In the midst of the chaos, Reese swung his fire arc over, several bullets ripping into the fox's flesh, some bouncing harmlessly off the reinforced lacing on his skeletal system. Ferro stood there for a stunned moment, and coughed up some foamy red, before falling to his knees, his assault rifle clattering to the floor from his slack paws. The fox slumped against the console next to him, blood and other synthesized fluids leaking from his bullet ridden body.

Reese, confident that the two threats had been sufficiently neutralized, strolled over to Ferro. After resting his rifle against the perforated terminal sputtering sparks, the coyote dropped down on his knees next to the dying vulpine, who looked at him with betrayed, questioning eyes.

"Wh ... whhyy?" Ferro coughed out, another gout of foamy blood pouring over his black muzzle lips.

"You and I both know why ..." Reese said, his cold, chrome optics staring down into the fox's meat eyes, the spark within them starting to dull.

"How did ... you ... know?" Ferro's paw moved up to clutch a larger exit wound, some type of semi-organic lubricating fluid trickling from a damaged, inorganic piece of exposed body ware.

"The Stone Rhino's may have flown CAS for the Steel Lynx during VSA, but the only ones who know about operation Tetro were the Steel Lynx, certain high level generals in the NCC command staff, and the Onyx Raptors Black Operations, who helped mop up the carnage the Brass called for."

What remained of Kylson's canid ears folded, the yote remembering the screams of burning village children.

"If anyone outside those three groups really knew about what happened in VSA, the rest of civilized Sol would bring the NCC down on evidence of genocide and war crimes." Lt Colonel Ferro nodded.

"You are a smart yote ... Reese." Ferro grimaced as something burst in him, a small trickle of crimson pouring from another bullet hole.

"So when were you planning to ice me?" Reese said, hoping to hear the truth this time. "Back at the NCC outpost we were originally going to hit tonight? I bet all the soldiers that were supposed to be here right now are pissed they missed the party."

"No ... I wasn't ...!!!" Ferro shook his head feebly. Reese's emotionless facade suddenly rippled with furry, his muzzle curling up into a snarl. Another lie. But despite the growling admonition, the fox continued.

"My employer didn't know ... where we were going now ... we ... could have disappeared after this ... together ..." Reese's anger gave rise to confusion, moments before the fox took his shaking, weak paws and took the coyote's muzzle in them, their muzzle lips meeting in an unexpected kiss.

Reese could taste Ferro's hot blood life on his lips; a mixture of bitter iron and bland silicon base.

Ferro's numb paws fell slack the ground, the dark pupils of his red meat eyes dilating into oblivion. Reese continued to stare down into them, feeling nothing as the fox whispered his last words to him.

"I ... love you ..."

Reese watched the body grow slack, the heat map of its core dipping in Thermo as the blood stopped moving, and grow cold. He had seen countless others die, but no one had ever told Reese that they loved him.

Not even Micheal.

The machine in the form of a coyote contemplated this for a short second, before standing up, more important business at paw. He made his way over to the main terminal, and noticed Basil's Imod smoking. He glanced at the screen, where a garbled shell of the lion twitched before him, entire parts of his mane and visage missing from data corruption.

"M ... Mmm ... ison inc-c-c-complete." the AI growled lightly, his stutter even more pronounced now.

"Max, what happened?" Reese asked, peering closer to the screen.

"Some hotshot ICE c-c-calling itself Wintermute w-w-was guarding some Ultraviolet coded file." the corrupted lion stammered. "Prop-p-p ... chances were it was SETH, so I buzzed it."

"Wasn't it?" The heat of the Imod was warm to the touch of the yote's left meat paw.

"Nega-t-ory Guen-ev-ere. Something .... more important. Basil needs what is inside the Russian c-c-cargo, so I loaded it into the truck. It's Sol's last hope. AMR knows I attempted to access this base's network, as well as their most top secret file, more classified than even Project SETH. Their lunar mass driver has already fired on this base even as I speak. You have five minutes to get out before this entire complex turns into one deep pot mark. The c-c-clock is t-t-icking."

Reese unplugged the media device and stepped past the bloody bodies littering the doorway entrance, looking once to the comm tech, the raccoon holding his hind leg where a stray ricochet had hit him.

"Please ... help me!!!" the nameless non-com whimpered, his eyes filled with fear with what he had overhead Max say.

The coyote machine calculated his odds of survival if the lame coon slowed him down, even if by a minute. He turned without so much as a word, and trotted down the hallway, to the idling truck sitting outside.

Count 1

Serene, the mass diver slug sailed through the empty void between Sol's satellite and its target, the large blue and green sphere growing larger with each passing second. In two hundred more seconds, the impact with Sol's surface would release the kinetic energy contained within; the blast equal to approximately one kiloton of TNT. It would make the explosion on base earlier look like a single firecracker in comparison

Despite multiple countdowns, Basil spun about, his hyrbid form a massive blur as he weaved and ducked between the small gaps in the onrushing, endless waves of bullets. The soldiers around the genetic jaberwocky stared on in horror, their gloved fingers tightening down on the triggers, unable to score a direct hit on the blurring dervish. As they closed in, the recoil made their weapons shutter in their tight grips, their recklessness proving to be their undoing.

Too fast to see, drops of sweat flew from Basil's feathered head fur in exhaustion. To his unparalleled reaction time, he had spent an eternity dodging, weaving through a slow moving, suspended minefield of criss crossing brass and lead. The gaps in the minefield widened, and Basil's exhaustion eased, his unbreakable knife sweeping up to deflect a few bullets back, mindful of the kinetic knock back from such fast moving projectiles.

From the viewpoint of the approaching soldiers, a few of their number dropped without cause, the remaining circle's morale slipping even more as they rushed the skoon. Their aim worsened, and ten seconds after the first burst, their clips ran dry. The shocked soldiers looked down at their useless weapons, before looking back up to the GEH, who had twirled to a crouched stop a few meters in front of them. He stooped there, panting, perspiration dripping from his brow, before is purple irises flicked up to them, burning with ethereal vehemence.

His turn.

The sweat matted fur of the hybrid exploded into sudden, purple pyrotechnics as Basil leapt forward, a swipe from his combat knife severing a parried assault rifle in half. The mono-molecular edged blade sliced through the highly synthesized polymer and metal like a hot knife through butter, before the blade continued through the soldiers chest armor and rib cage underneath. A spray of hot crimson erupted from the pericardial sac, showering Basil in blood, before he swung out behind him, slashing through one of rifles one of the soldiers had decided to use as a makeshift club.

There was a flurry of motion inside the tightly packed group of foot soldiers, before a few drops of blood splattered on the ferrocrete at their hind feet. A moment later, a tangled mass of severed limbs and diced body armor fell to the ground, Basil re-sheathing his soiled blade in one deft kata motion. Thirty seconds after planting the bomb and setting the timer, Basil sprang forth and sprinted from the hanger, his tired, spastic limbs blurring once again.

"Whats your situation Chrome Coyote?" Basil gasped into his mike, breathless. The skoon raced out of the hanger doors just as the diesel transport thundered past.

"Nice timing, Sato!" Reese barked back through the comm channel, "Jump in! AMR has a 100 kilogram slug with our name on it, and its about to come down on top of us in two minutes!"

Basil sprinted then jumped on the tailgate, scrambling up despite the hard bounce of the semi as it sped back to the open supply gate. He clawed his way into the back of the transport, noticing the same solid black cyrotube as before. He shot a look back at the hanger just as it erupted in a massive fireball, its concussive wave rattling the fleeing transport.

"Speaking of, did you hit the motor pool?" Reese asked, trying to coax every last bit of acceleration out of the jalopy as he could.

"I got kinda busy!" the skoon barked back.

"Well you better find some cover!" the coyote snarled, "Because we're about ready to get some company!"

A Coyote reconnaissance vehicle sat ahead of them, guarding the gate from further intrusion. The gunner inside the eight wheeled vehicle spun the turret about, bringing its 25mm gun to bear. Basil ducked behind the stasis coffin as they swung past it, the anti-infantry mode of the cannon turning the side of the lightly armored transport into a sieve of perforated metal.

Sparks flew from the tube's dense outer housing as it took the brunt of it, before a snowy hiss of escaping liquid nitrogen announced loss of containment. The transport shuddered under the brutal hit, but screeched its away through the gate exit, bouncing down the road on several flat tires. Despite the slight swerve of the transport back and forth, Basil clung on for dear life, wondering what was wrong with Reese as he tried to outdistance the Coyote, which started to give chase.

Count 0

The mass driver slug pieced through Sol's thick atmosphere in less than 0.3 seconds, kilometers of clouds swirling around its cataclysmic wake. One fraction of a second, Fort Rekall existed, the next, it did not. The shock wave from the impact forced several GPS satellites hanging overhead in orbit to reacquire topographical data for the entire region. On Mars Colony, radical Mennonite extremists cheered as they thought one of their asteroids had made it through Sol's perimeter point defense.

Basil's eyes widened as he watched a white hot star streak from the heavens, and obliterate the sight of Fort Rekall from his memory. Despite being a kilometer away now, the sonic boom stunned him, knocking him back against the damaged cryo-tube. A moment later, the expanding seismic shock wave scraped Terra's surface away, crushing the pursuing recon vehicle like a empty soy beer can.

"Fiery the angels fell; Deep thunder rolled around their shores ... " Basil's muzzle lips whispered, before the earth wave swallowed them ...

From within the void of unconsciousness, another memory sparked within Basil's mind, but unlike all his previous recollections, this one by far illuminated the darkness, stayed the emptiness within him, the most. For it was a real memory, his memory, and not Peer's or even Violet's. Basil recalled to earlier that day, back at Ferro's flat, when he and Reese made love.

Basil noticed the roughness of Kylson's paw pads first, sensation drifting to him from out of the nebulous, empty void. The coolness of Ferro's bedroom, as the coyote let him to it. There was no door to open here, the fox's private chamber a mess. What remained of the door lay just inside, the bed's silk sheets rumpled, streaks of dried blood in them. Bright sunlight filtered in through the windows blinds, the lingering scent of ozone and recent rainfall billowing in through the flat's partially open window.

Despite the ascetics and vaguely Asian decor of Ferro's bedroom, the skoon had little time to appreciate the fox's sense of fengshui as the needy coyote pushed him to the bed, his naked canid body pressing close to the hybrid. Basil's muzzle lips touched off another firestorm of inner passion as they met Kylson's own, their intertwined bodies slinking onto the memory foam. As the coyotes paw roamed about Basil's slim chest, the skoon's nipples hardened underneath the police uniform, his lungs tight with anticipation.

As their muzzle lips parting for a necessary, but unwanted, moment, Basil stripped off the black shirt while Reese pealed off his pants, exposing the hybrid's unusual sex. Already rigid with excitement, and dripping a bead of pre at the sharp slit, the black member looked a morphic cross between a skunk and raccoon's own. Reese's coyote paws trembled with fascination as they grasped the exotic shape, moments before his ravenous muzzle lips devoured it.

Basil threw back his head in a pleasured gasp, his paws clutching the rumpled, cool sheets as the coyote bobbed up and down on his mutt cock. Reese let his fangs scrape just along the tender, slick organ, his tongue tasting the hybrid's musky essence. The yote slurped every drop of salty sweet nectar the hybrid gave him, before his muzzle descended even further down the black, throbbing shaft. Trembling, the skoon gasped out as the coyote's square canid nose pushed deep into Basil's musky crotch fur, his shaft surrounded by the yote's hot, suckling muzzle.

Reese's paws gripped Basil's hips and held them as he bobbed his head gently, picking up speed as the hybrid hips tried to arch up in tempo to the erotic rhythm. Eye's closing, the coyote thought back to the mud pit back in VSA, the only time him and Micheal had made love. Basil tasted nothing like Peer's, but it did little to stay the memories of those long summer nights, when he had laid awake on his fold out in the squalor of his old apartment, and fantasized about what it would have been like to take his commanding officer.

The skoon tensed suddenly, his pleasured gurgle cut off in climax, and the sudden flood of hot, salty cum into his muzzle and throat broke Reese from his sexual reverie. The yote drank down the thick seed greedily, his muzzle lips tight against the squirting shaft, and Basil relaxed into the memory foam, sweat starting to soak again into the already soiled, used sheets. Reese's eyelids flicked open, his chrome colored optics meeting Basil's purple irises.

It was hard to believe that forty eight hours ago, they had come close to killing each other. Now, they enjoyed each other, filling each other's need in ways no one else had been able to in the long, dark years since Glow City first lit up the Old Canadian night sky with its trademark radiated aurora.

It wasn't just Basil's similarity to Peers that drove Reese to climb over the skoon's slender, toned body, the slight pudge of his belly gliding over tight abs. It was the fact that the two had survived, flourished even, in a world that had previously written them off as a obsolete liability.

Unlike morality; camaraderie would never become obsolescent. Advances in polymer chemistry could turn gold crude into worthless sludge, but science could never devalue two soldier's dependence on each other.

Basil spread his legs as Reese gripped the undersides of the slender thighs in his paws, the cool metal of the coyote's right one sending a vertigo of hard thrill up the skoon's spine. With a black and white paw, Basil grasped his slicked, still hard cock, and pumped it lightly, a small tickle of slippery seed coating it. He reached out to the hard yote pole jutting out from its sheath, and rubbed the slick, impromptu lube all over the canid's length. Neither of them said a word as Kylson positioned his meat against Basil's tight pucker, the tapered tip spreading the hybrids muscular ring slightly.

Reese pushed into Basil's ass with a slow, satisfied grunt, both of them groaning out in deep, rich pleasure. It didn't take long before the stocky, thick build of the yote worked into a steady rhythm, his belly slapping hard against the skoon's sensitive prick. They didn't wait to start fucking each other hard and deep, their satisfaction long overdue. Basil hooked his ankles on the yote's broad shoulders, bringing his hips up to angle so Reese's thick canid prick could rub even deeper against his sensitive prostate.

Old met New. Again and again.

Kylson arched his back as he fucked the skoon, his knot sinking deep into Basil's eager depths. Taking his own rigid member in his paw, Basil started to beat himself off in tandem each time the thick, pulsing orb ground back and forth against his g-spot. As the skoon's insides tightened around his already swollen, sensitive knot, Reese could't hold back any longer, and he threw his head back in howl as his balls twitched, pouring their contents deep into Basil. The hot gush over his prostate was all that it took to push Basil over the edge, and the hybrid moaned, his legs kicking slightly as his thick seed spurted all over his toned chest, matting the fur there.

In the afterglow, there was silence. Neither of them said much as they mulled over the past forty eight hours, until Basil heard Ferro take a shower just across the hallway.

"You think he cared that you just fucked someone else in his bed?" The skoon said, looking up at the ceiling with his arms around the sweat stained, heavy yote. Reese's chrome optics narrowed, and didn't say anything for a few long moments. Basil wondered if he had touched an unknown nerve.

"Be careful what you say around him." the yote finally spoke, his alloyed paw tips running through the hybrid's white streak of belly fur. "And don't be surprised if he doesn't make it out alive when we hit Fort Rekall later tonight."

"I thought you said we are going to hit some lightly guarded communications relay outpost?" Basil asked, confused, "And why isn't he coming back with us?"

"Because, Sato," Reese sighed, nuzzling the skoon lightly, "He is working for the NCC, most likely Black Ops, and if given half a chance, will take us both out when we have our backs turned. Let me take care of it. We handle our own." Basil shrugged and nodded.

"What happens after we hit Fort Rekall, Chrome Coyote?"

Fort Rekall.

The name without meaning. The place without form. Basil's memories sharpened now in the timeless void, an eternity ago when the furious angel of aberrant science descended and wiped Sol clean of a technocratic run Gomorrah. This was another real memory, of his life, but not his death. The gene spliced hybrid had to remind himself he was still alive.

Basil blinked, small pebbles of earth and grit falling off his eyelids. When he sat up, a small earthen blanket spilled off him, a wave of vertigo and nausea threating to make the injured, exhausted hybrid puke. The back of the truck tilted crazily, the perspective reminding Basil of old interior 2D stills taken of fun houses. The damaged cryo-tube off to his left was open, the inside still thawing and wet, so he hadn't been out long.

But whatever had been inside was no longer held captive by its icy prison.

Pulling himself out of the shallow grave in the back of the truck, Basil climbed out of the transport, into the night's twilight. Under the stars, far away from Glow City's oppressive, shimmering nocturnal ceiling, Basil pulled Reese's bloody body from the crushed remnants of the cab. Small, hot tears streaked down his muzzle as he examined his grievous wounds, most likely received as the 25mm cannon pulverized the cab, jagged shrapnel blowing straight through the light armor. Reese probably continued to drive Basil out of the blast radius even as he was dying. Basil's paw touched the coyote's chest, his muzzle lips leaning down to kiss a comrade, a lover, he had known since earliest, implanted memory.

At least Kylson escaped Glow City in Death now, even if he could not in Life.

After he allowed himself a moment to grieve, Basil noticed something hard in the chest pocket of the coyote's tattered, blood soaked uniform. He pulled out his battered Imod, and began to walk towards the western tree line, in the direction of Davenport.

"Max," Basil whispered as he plugged in his headset, choking back sobs, "How you doing?"

"Bbb ...bbb... been better, C-c-hief." the corrupted lion replied, a hollow edged distortion to his synthesized voice.

"Do me a favor, Max," the skoon said, his weak legs still driving him forward, on sheer determination alone, "Connect me to Dr. Edgemar."

"I c...c...cannot guarantee that AMR wont intercept that trans-z-z-z-z ... call."

"I know Max," Basil replied, his eyes narrowing as he climbed over the boreal tree line that had been knocked down from the blast. "I want them to know I'm still alive, and coming for them."

"Basil. P-r-r-romise me something."

"Whats that?"

"I'm tired. Do me a favor. Just Z-z -zeroooo me out. I can be re-compiled, but I'll never be c-c-cutting edge again. I'd rather be nothing."

"Sure." The skoon promised, saddened to loose another loved one so soon after the last. "Goodbye ... Max ..." As soon as the voice link to his primary physician opened up on his headset, Basil formated Max's heuristic core.

"Basil!" the doctor stammered out in surprise, most likely awaken in his bed by Basil's comm call. "Do you know what time it is? Where are you?"

"Save the chatter, Dr." Basil spat out. "How long do I have?"

"What do you mean?"

"Can the shit. I know all about Project SETH." The skoon cleared the last earthen debris hill, unaware that something not of Sol origin followed him from afar. "You know my incept date. How much longer do I have to live?" There was a moment of silence as the doctor considered his options.

"Five weeks. At most. The more you exert your body, the more your metabolism has to increase to compensate. The faster the rate of S phase mitosis, the faster you will shed telomere sequences. The wick that burns twice as bright burns half as long, Basil."

Without replying, Basil terminated the call and tossed his Imod aside, marching toward the wavering, iridescent aurora to the west. Forty eight hours ago, he was unsure about much of a past he had. Now, he was unsure of how much future he had left. As Basil stepped into the deep wilderness of the Re-established Northwest Territories, he had no idea that his engineered terrestrial DNA, and the untouched, extra-terrestrial DNA of the thing stalking him, would be the last bastion of hope for Sol itself ...

Epilogue:

Nine Weeks Later

As Basil rested naked on a beach chair under the shade of a palm tree, the bright, obscured sun of the south western hemisphere shone down at him. The roar of waves crashing on a white sanded beach sounded near, and a light ocean breeze ruffled the soft fur of his swollen belly. He smiled and gave it a soft rub, finally finding his greater purpose.

All in all we do believe

As we try to conceive

In this glowing afterlife

A gray husky paw dropped down to give Basil a tropical drink, and the pregnant skoon looked up, beaming. "Thanks hon."

"Pa'zhalsta" the father said in polite Russian. One of the digits of his paw shape shifted into a small, wavering green tentacle, deftly plucking the little umbrella from out from the glass, before pulling away. As Basil sipped the drink, a satellite phone rang, and Basil picked it out of the white sand next to him, holding it up to his ear.

"Yeah." There was a momentary pause. "How much up front?" Basil seemed to contemplate the unknown offer, then nodded his head in agreement. "I'll take the job." He bit into the glass, chewing the nutritious silicon.

It was, after all, good for the kits.

~ Fin ~

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who read this series and commented, all five of you, and to everyone who helped in the development in this gritty yarn.

Many hugs to Nauta, for loaning me his character, Basil. Expect a future sequel series based on his favorite kink: MPreg. Many thanks to a fellow coyote, Kurst, for making me wonder if a Frank Miller-esque niche existed within the fandom. Many muzzle licks to Coyoteold1, for getting me over the hump between parts III - IV, and inspiring me to finish this plot heavy monstrosity. Many beat downs to Kel Whitepaw, who provided technical, weapon, and martial knowledge where appropriate.

Want a challenge? See if you can spot every cyberpunk cultural references in the series. Hint: Number of Easter Eggs: Many.